


Vanilla Ice Cream

by bananamuffin



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananamuffin/pseuds/bananamuffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever, Jeff thinks. He doesn’t have a crush on Mike, he doesn’t wait all day for Mike to come in when a few days have gone by since his last visit, and his conversations with Mike are definitely not the best part of his day.</p>
<p>Except that he does and they are and shit, Jeff has a crush on Mike.</p>
<p>OR<br/>Jeff works at an ice cream shop and Mike might be his favorite regular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanilla Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have an excuse for this except that I love that Richie gives Arnie ice cream and one day I walked into my local ice cream place and came out with a double scoop of mint chip and this fic idea. Thanks Gabby for pushing me to finish :D.

Jeff loves the ice cream shop. He likes working there, under the fluorescent lights that made everything look slightly off-color. He likes the pale blue of the outer walls of Sea Isle Ice Cream, made paler by the sun over time, the row of planters lining the building and the two wide, white-shuttered windows that let the sunlight in.

He likes the interior, too, the skinny-legged black tables with red vinyl chairs on spindly legs. The long ice cream display, with as many flavors as can comfortably fit in a 12 foot long row (eighteen, including a few soy options for those who need it). He even likes the various pictures of actors and actresses from the age of black and white films that lined the walls, filling up most of the space.

He was not, however, a huge fan of his coworkers abandoning him during the post-lunchtime rush on a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon. There are currently three families, all with at least two kids under six, sunburnt and in desperate need of a nap, waiting to order ice cream from Jeff. Several times now, he’s asked them to take a number from the till that stood at the end of the counter. Each of the moms had given him a harried glare before turning away to deal with one or more of her children.

“Jimmy,” one of the moms is saying in a pinched tone to a blond, pink-cheeked little boy who looks to be on the verge of tears, “you can’t have two scoops of ice cream. You can have one, or we can go home.”

Jimmy replies with a high-pitched wail.

Jeff is going to kill Claude on his next shift, flu or not.

“Three kids scoops of vanilla,” Jimmy’s dad says while Jimmy’s mom picks him up and carries him outside. “Uh…do you have a reduced sugar option?”

It takes a while, but Jeff eventually gets through all three families and a very shaky three scoops on a cone for what will probably be a sugar-rushed-then-crashed 12 year old boy, but that’s not his problem now. He leans against the back counter and closes his eyes, glad for the few minutes of break he is going to get between this and the next rush, when he hears someone clear their throat.

He opens his eyes to a guy about his age standing on the other side of the counter, wearing board shorts and a hat, curls sticking out from under it. He smiles a little bit sheepishly and then raises his hand, which holds a piece of paper.

“I, uh, took a number.”

Jeff blinks at him for a moment, only remembering he has a job to do when the guy takes another step toward the counter, still holding up the piece of paper.

“Right,” Jeff says, standing up and heading toward the counter. “Thanks for that, I think you’re the only one.”

“Well, you asked so many times,” the guy says, and Jeff appreciates that he sounds sincere and not sarcastic.

“What can I get for you?” Jeff asks, putting on his work smile that he’d thought he’d worn out in the last half an hour.

“One scoop of vanilla in a cup, and one of rocky road on a cone.”

“Got it.”

A few minutes later, Jeff is handing the guy his change. The guy pockets his money and smiles at Jeff. “Thanks, Jeff, see ya later,” he says, and the use of his name catches Jeff off-guard. He has a name tag but customers hardly ever use it, and Jeff finds his cheeks growing a little warmer under the guy’s gaze. He hopes the year-round tan he’s gained from living so close to the beach the last few years is hiding it at least a little.

“No problem,” Jeff answers, trailing off a little when he remembers he didn’t know the guy’s name.

“Mike,” Mike says helpfully, picking up his cup of vanilla ice cream.

“Mike,” Jeff finishes and smiles, his first real smile in hours probably. And knowing that he still has to work several more hours, probably his last.

Mike nods and turns to leave. When he gets to the door, he turns back to Jeff and says, “See ya later, Jeff,” again, pushes the door open with his back, and is gone.

Now that he is actually alone, Jeff sits down behind the counter.

He’s kind of glad Claude wasn’t here to see that.

~

It’s the middle of the day the next Wednesday when Mike comes back. It’s been a slow day, as most weekdays are even during the summer, and Jeff and Claude are playing a game of “Guess the Regular”, matching ice cream orders to frequent customers, behind the counter when the bell on the door chimes.

Jeff catches sight of the familiar curly hair poking out the bottom of an awful plaid hat. He tips his head at Mike and says, “I got this one” to Claude, who retreats to the back of the shop in order to stay out of Jeff’s way.

Mike’s smiling wide when Jeff meets him in the middle of the long counter, and he says, “You the only one that works here?”

“Nah,” Jeff says, “Claude’s just lazy.”

Mike laughs at that and laughs again when Claude pipes up from the back with, “Can it Carter!”

Jeff just shakes his head. “What can I get you today, Mike?”

“A scoop of vanilla in a bowl and,” Mike starts, pausing to look over the selection of ice cream in front of him, taking a moment to decide. “Two scoops of cookie dough in another.”

“What, you didn’t like the rocky road?” Jeff teases, already scooping the vanilla into a Styrofoam bowl. He pops a lid into place and hands it over the top of the counter.

“Just trying something new,” Mike answers and he smiles again when Jeff catches his eye across the counter.

Jeff rings up Mike’s order and Mike drops his two dollars’ worth of change into the tip jar, tipping his head in thanks as he leaves. He stops at the door and looks back over his shoulder. “See you next time, Jeff.”

“I’ll be here,” Jeff answers and smiles when Mike turns back towards the door and leaves.

Claude descends upon him almost immediately. “You know him?”

Jeff shrugs. “He was in here a few days ago.”

“Uh-huh,” Claude says, and he gives Jeff a considering look. “Think he’ll be a regular?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff answers and very firmly clamps down on the urge to add “But I hope so.”

Claude shoves at his shoulder. “Dude, you totally like him.”

“I do not!” Jeff can already feel the blush building on his cheeks, up to the tips of his ears.

“You do. You want him to come back every day and fall in love with you for giving him discounts on ice cream sundaes.”

“He doesn’t get sundaes,” Jeff says, crossing his arms and leaning against the back counter. “And I didn’t give him a discount.” He makes Mike pay like any other customer, thank you.

“Not yet. But you will.” Claude’s grinning at him and Jeff can tell he’s going to regret Claude’s return to work now.

“Shut up, G,” Jeff says and punches Claude in the shoulder for good measure. Claude laughs but holds up his hands in surrender, backing away just as the bell above the door chimes, signaling a customer. “Get back to work, loser.”

Jeff listens to the customer order from the back, ears still burning from Claude’s teasing.

~

Sea Isle Ice Cream has plenty of regulars—they’re right off the beach, just a few blocks over from a row of beach houses on all three sides that are not the ocean. There’s a single mom who lives in Sea Isle all year long with her kids, a little boy and a little girl, and their grandfather, that Jeff can count on seeing the first Sunday of every month and every special occasion for their usual sundaes. An elderly couple, Rosa and Mark, that bring their dog by every Saturday afternoon, even when it’s grossly humid outside, to split a reduced sugar Vanilla sundae. And like clockwork during the summer months for the three years that Jeff has spent at Sea Isle Ice Cream to help pay his way through college, the same group of high schoolers comes in on Friday night two hours before closing and take over the table in the front corner of the store, eating their ice cream in twenty minutes and goofing off the next hour and forty.

Some regulars only last a summer, some disappear for a few months and eventually return to order the same thing they’ve ordered as long as Jeff has worked there. But they’re still just an ice cream shop, which is to say that there are not enough people coming in that Mike continuing to drop by every few days could be missed by Jeff.

Or by Claude.

They talk a lot, as much as they can in the time it takes Jeff to get Mike’s two orders ready. If there’s any other customer in the shop, Mike will wait until all of them have left before walking up to the counter, his smile wide as usual. On especially slow days, Mike will eat his ice cream at the table closest to the counter and Jeff will lean against it and they’ll talk until someone else shows up, when Mike will carefully put the to-go lid on his cup and nod his head goodbye at the door.

As soon as he leaves, Claude is there, smirking at Jeff. He doesn’t always say something, but Jeff knows what he’s thinking and he knows that Claude’s wrong, Jeff totally doesn’t have a thing for this random beach dude that drops by his place of work every couple of days, and he definitely doesn’t wait for him to come in like a puppy waiting for its owner, no matter what Claude says.

A few weeks after Mike showed up the first time, Jeff is definitely not waiting for Mike to come into the shop but he might be thinking that it’s been a few days since he came by when Claude says, “Dude, you know he’s into you, too, don’t you?” while he’s wiping down the tops of the freezers.

Jeff turns to look at him, his eyes wide and mouth dropped open. “I—what?” he splutters, trying and failing not to blush.

“No one eats that much ice cream, Cartsy,” Claude says, straightening up to look at Jeff and cross his arms across his chest. “He comes back because he’s _into you_.”

“He’s _not_ ,” Jeff says. “And even if he is, _I’m_ not into him like that.” He can have friends, can’t he?

 Claude just shakes his head. “Sure, Cartsy. Tell me you haven’t been waiting for him to come in all day.”

“I haven’t!”

Claude stares at him long enough that Jeff looks away. “Well, it’s been a few days,” he mutters, because he _had_ just been thinking about that, and Claude laughs. “But that doesn’t mean I like him!”

“Sure it doesn’t,” Claude says and opens his mouth to continue but stops when the bell chimes. Jeff peeks over the counter and sees Mike walking towards him, and when he looks back to Claude, his coworker is smirking.

_Whatever,_ Jeff thinks. He doesn’t have a crush on Mike, he doesn’t wait all day for Mike to come in when a few days have gone by since his last visit, and his conversations with Mike are definitely not the best part of his day.

Except that he does and they are and _shit_ , Jeff has a crush on Mike.

He admits it to himself at the exact moment Mike stops in front of him.

“Hey,” Mike says, looking up at Jeff and smiling.

Jeff can’t get his mouth to work, so he smiles and nods at Mike. He swallows, does his best to gather himself in the next two seconds and says, “What’ll it be today?”

On the inside, he’s thinking, _is Mike even into dudes?_ It’s not something that’s come up between them yet.

“Just a double scoop of chocolate for me.”

“No vanilla today?” Jeff asks, because Mike always orders that in addition to whatever he feels like eating.

“Nah, Arnie isn’t feeling that well today, so no ice cream for him.”

Jeff pauses mid scoop. This is the first he’s heard of Arnie. “Arnie? Is he your roommate?”

Mike raises his eyebrows at him, but he laughs. “You could say that, I guess.”

Jeff’s not exactly sure what that’s supposed— _oh_.

Mike keeps up a one-sided conversation while Jeff works on his order and rings him up. There’s a buzzing in his ears, it feels like, and it doesn’t help that Mike still smiles at him when Jeff hands back his change.

“So, I was thinking—” Mike starts, after he’s pocketed his change. His smile has slipped a bit and he’s not looking at Jeff, which is just fine with Jeff because he doesn’t need that feeling in his stomach right now. “I mean, I was wondering—“

“I gotta go,” Jeff says abruptly, cutting Mike off. Mike pauses midsentence, mouth hanging open and eyebrows raised. “I’m not—I just have to go, I’m sorry,” Jeff says before he turns and hurries toward the employee bathroom. He locks himself in and turns around to lean his back on the door, closing his eyes.

It’s a few minutes before Jeff hears Claude knock on the bathroom door. “You all right in there, Carts?”

Jeff takes a breath, then says, “M’fine, G,” and opens the door.

Claude is standing a step or two away from the door, an unsure look on his face. It’s not the first time either of them has had a breakdown at work—finals really get to G, and Jeff is horrible around paper deadlines—but running away on a slow shift in the middle of summer is new.

“Wanna explain?” G says, more patiently than Jeff had expected.

Jeff sighs. “I do like him.”

Claude raises an eyebrow, then opens his mouth to speak but Jeff cuts him off. “I like him and he has a boyfriend.”

Claude’s mouth snaps shut and Jeff watches as he mulls this information over, a considering look on his face. Then he says, “Did he tell you that?”

Jeff shakes his head. “He has a _roommate_.”

“A roommate?”

Jeff stares at him. “A _roommate_ , G.”

Claude studies him for a moment, then seems to come to some kind of decision—Jeff knows the look well. “That sucks, buddy.”

“This is your fault,” Jeff says, glaring at Claude and crossing his arms. “I didn’t even like him until you said I did five minutes ago.”

Claude seems to be fighting a smile, which, it’s _not_ funny. Jeff illustrates this by punching Claude in the arm, harder than he normally might, and saying, flatly, “I hate you, dude.”

Claude just reaches a hand out, pats him on the shoulder, and says, “Sorry, man,” in a voice that only sounds half sincere to Jeff.

Whatever, Jeff has only had a stupid crush on boyfriend-having-Mike for like, six minutes now.

He can get over a six minute crush.

~

Jeff cannot get over a six minute crush.

“Maybe they’ll break up,” Claude says, a week later, after they’ve beat the post-dinner rush, and Jeff buries his face in his arms on the counter.

“I don’t want that,” Jeff says, and maybe it’s not totally truthful, but he’s not terrible enough to admit it. Part of trying to be a good person, he figures, is denying all the bad things he wants to happen until he doesn’t want them to happen anymore.

But it’s been a week since Mike has come in, a week since Jeff found out that Mike has a boyfriend, and he’s not sure if Mike is avoiding him, since Jeff did act pretty weird last time he was in, or if he’s just busy. Jeff has been jumpy the last two days, thinking Mike is going to come in every time he hears the bell over the door and wondering if he’s with his boyfriend every time he sees that it’s not Mike.

“Well, maybe it will be an amicable break up,” Claude says. “Or maybe you can be polygamous.”

Jeff groans into his arms.

Jeff has spent the last week very adamantly trying not to hate Arnie. He figures that anyone Mike is dating has got to be a pretty cool guy, because Mike doesn’t seem like the type to put up with a bad boyfriend. And Jeff shouldn’t hate pretty cool guys, especially ones he doesn’t know.

But he does hate him, because he’s dating Mike, he gets to go to the beach with Mike and eat ice cream with Mike and probably like, _kiss_ Mike, all of which are things that Jeff might have thought about doing with Mike in the last week.

“You might like Arnie,” Claude says thoughtfully, bumping Jeff’s hip with his own to get Jeff to look up. Jeff doesn’t move. “Maybe you’ll like him more than you like Mike.”

Jeff’s pretty sure that would make things worse, not better.

“Please,” Jeff begs, still not raising his head, “stop talking.”

Claude makes a non-committal noise, pats Jeff on the back, and leaves him to be miserable.

~

Jeff is on break the next time Mike comes into the store. It’s toward the end of the day, still a few hours from closing time but late enough that the families that come after dinner have already come and gone, so there isn’t much going on inside. It helps that it’s the middle of the week and Jeff can leave Claude inside on his own for a while without feeling guilty.

He sits by the side of the building, watching people walk on the beach and feeling vaguely jealous and nauseous when he sees couples walking by holding hands until Claude opens the side door and pokes his head out.

“Hey, Cartsy, can you come inside? Or are you still sulking out here?”

Jeff glares at him. “I’m not sulking.”

Claude shrugs at him but he’s smiling in a way that makes Jeff wary.

“Another crowd show up?”

“Whatever gets you inside, bud,” Claude says, and Jeff sighs. “You can’t avoid him forever, Cartsy.”

“I could if you’d let me,” Jeff grumbles. He doesn’t make any move to get up. He’d rather stay outside and not sulk than see Mike right now, even if he’s been waiting for Mike to come back in for a week and half now. He can wait until next week.

But Claude just laughs and says, “I think you might wanna see him today,” then stares at Jeff expectantly, still smirking, until Jeff gives in and follows him inside.

As he approaches the counter, Jeff sees the familiar dark curls sticking out from under a hat, the endearingly crooked nose. The corners of Mike’s mouth are turned up, smiling slightly at Jeff. His pulse speeds up a little at the sight of Mike, and he puts on his best Service Worker Fake Smile. “Hey, Mike. What can I get you today?”

“Hey, Jeff,” Mike says, smiling growing a little bigger when Jeff meets his eye. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Jeff’s stomach drops through the floor. He can’t believe Claude brought him inside for _this_ , that he’d thought Jeff would actually want to meet Mike’s boyfriend right now, when he’s still upset about his stupid crush—

“This is Arnie,” Mike says, and gestures down toward his feet.

Confused, Jeff steps closer to the counter and looks over it. Seated at Mike’s feet is a large chocolate Labrador who looks up at Jeff as Jeff looks down at him.

Oh.

Jeff shoots a look at Claude, standing off to the side of Jeff and covering his mouth with his hand to hide his laughter.

“Nice to meet you, Arnie,” Jeff says, looking back at the dog and smiling. Arnie responds with a quiet _boof_ at his name, which makes Jeff smile bigger.

“Arnie and I were wondering,” Mike starts, and when Jeff looks up at him he sees that Mike is looking down at the ground, “if you wanted to take a walk on the beach with us.”

Jeff’s pretty sure he’s never felt so relieved in his life, and he can’t help but to laugh as the realization that _Arnie is Mike’s dog_ sets in.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Mike starts in quickly. Jeff can see the tips of his ears have turned red, and it makes him smile, because Jeff has yet to see Mike embarrassed about anything.

“No, no, I want to go,” Jeff cuts in. He glances around the empty ice cream shop, and then at Claude, who is still smirking off to the side. “How about now?”

“Now?” Mike says, finally looking up.

“Sure,” Jeff answers. He takes off his name tag and puts it in his pocket, then pulls his paper hat off his head at tosses it at Claude. “You can handle a shift without me, right G?”

Claude catches the hat and rolls his eyes at Jeff. “I think I’ll manage. You owe me, though,” he adds, smiling, and Jeff knows he’s talking about making Jeff come inside and deal with things as much as he is about taking the shift alone.

~

“Let me get this straight,” Mike says half an hour later. They’re walking beside each other on the beach, each of them holding their shoes in one hand, Arnie trotting a few feet in front of them, his leash unattached and hanging out of Mike’s pocket. “You thought I was dating my dog?”

“No, I thought Arnie was a person, and that you were dating him,” Jeff explains, watching as Arnie picks up a stick that’s been washed ashore by the tide and brings it to Mike. Mike takes it from him and throws it ahead of them. Arnie runs off into the tide again.

“And that’s why you ran away last time I came in.”

Jeff blushes at the memory, and at what he’s going to say next. “Yeah, well, I’d only just figured out that I liked you about thirty seconds before you walked in, thanks to G. It was kind of a lot to handle in five minutes.”

Mike makes a thoughtful noise and Jeff glances over to see him smiling. The tide washes in over their feet just as Jeff elbows Mike playfully in the side. “I came in that day to ask you out,” Mike says, “and then you ran away before I could get it out. I thought that you knew and just didn’t want to let me down, so I, uh, I stayed away for a while.”

Jeff makes a face. Mike _had_ been avoiding him, but not for the reason Jeff had thought. “Sorry,” Jeff says. “What made you come back?”

Mike laughs. “I ran into your coworker last night on the beach. Claude? When I introduced him to Arnie, he just started laughing, and then insisted that I bring him by the shop today. Now I know why.” Mike looks up and over at him, a smile on his face. “I can’t believe you thought I was dating my dog.”

Jeff groans. He’s never going to live this down.

They find a seat on the beach a few minutes later in a spot that’s relatively secluded. Jeff’s always loved the beach at night; he’s happier to be here with Mike now.

Mike throws the stick for Arnie again before dropping down next to Jeff, and then he surprises Jeff by reaching over and taking Jeff’s hand in his.

Jeff responds by bumping his shoulder gently against Mike’s and then staying there, their arms pressed against each other.

“I can’t believe we have to thank G for getting us to go on a date,” Jeff says, and Mike laughs softly. Jeff likes the sound of it.

Mike half turns toward Jeff, Jeff sees his eyes drop down to Jeff’s lips and back up, and he’s just barely started to lean in when he’s tackled into the sand by a large, wet ball of fur.

“Arnie!” Mike yells. Arnie ignores him in favor of licking Jeff’s face while Jeff laughs and reaches around to rub Arnie’s head. “Arnie, get off!”

Arnie pushes his head into Jeff’s hand, but shuffles off to Jeff’s side. He huffs happily and drops his head on Jeff’s chest so that Jeff can keep petting him.

“S’okay,” Jeff says, and reaches his free hand out to take Mike’s hand too. He looks up to see Mike smiling down at the two of them, and using his free hand to pat Arnie on the back.

“I think he likes you,” Mike says, running his fingers through Arnie’s fur.

Jeff laughs, and thinks about how a week ago he’d hated Arnie purely on principle. He scratches the top of Arnie’s head, a grin on his face. “I think I like him, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> When I finished this I realized it might be weird that Claude and Jeff were the only ones ever in the ice cream shop, but that's exactly how it is at my local ice cream place and I liked it. Anyway! thanks for reading =)


End file.
